


Road to Happiness

by PatchworkIdeas



Series: A Genie's Tale [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Disability, Fluff, Genie!Fili, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:02:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22676845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatchworkIdeas/pseuds/PatchworkIdeas
Summary: Fili has a lot of regrets - and a plan to make up for them.(Forgiving yourself is so much harder than being forgiven.)
Relationships: Fíli/Kíli (Tolkien)
Series: A Genie's Tale [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1631386
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22





	Road to Happiness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Linane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linane/gifts).



Not a day went by where Fili wasn't amazed and awed by just how strong Kili was.  
Nothing could stop Kili when he put his mind to it, and he treated the loss of his sight as an obstacle, a price he had to pay for what he wanted, but nothing he couldn't work around.  
Whether it was moving around without getting lost outside, learning to read Braille or even tackling cooking and baking - Kili used everything at his disposal to live like he had always wanted, like his sudden disability was just another hurdle rather than an unmovable wall. 

Not once did Kili give up.

Fili didn't know how Kili did it, how he kept his head high and kept smiling and laughing regardless of what life sent his way. Fili's heart swelled each time he looked at Kili, this kind being who had set him free and stolen his heart at the same time. And yet it also broke, with each struggle, each time Kili tripped or failed, laughter turning into a pained grimace for just a moment before he picked himself up and tried again. Yet each time Fili tried to apologise, tried to find the right words, to find anything to make up for the loss, for how his own freedom had cost Kili part of his own, Kili's answer remained the same.  
"I would do it all over again."

Fili still didn't know how he had been lucky enough to fall into such kind hands all those years ago. 

Kili had been young, barely an adult, when the lamp found its way into his life - and he was wise beyond his years, not squandering his wishes for the next best desire and making sure no one knew of Fili. 

Not that Kili had kept him captive.  
While he hid the lamp, he never chained Fili into it, or even into his room, despite the risk. Fili couldn't pin point when exactly he fell in love with his master, but it might have been when Kili realised that Fili hadn't been able to enjoy any of the endless years he had existed, always chained to his lamp and the next wish, and gave him time fitting clothes, hiding the obvious signs of what he was and taking him out on a stroll through his kingdom, letting him taste their specialties, enjoy the best views and buying him any book or trinket he desired - to look at when Kili had to be out doing his duty and couldn't keep him company. 

Not once had he been held prisoner inside his lamp, Kili's room always up for exploring. If he had asked, Kili probably would have found a way to let him have free range of the entire Palace - but even the freedom to leave his lamp and settle himself into the comfortable bed, devouring book after book or even just enjoying being able to breathe and exist as he once used to, (without anyone watching him, displaying him, showing him off or keeping him for their own sick pleasure) was a freedom so dizzying Fili didn't know he could handle any more.  
Or maybe it was when he realised how the Prince started to look at him, when the fear took hold of Fili, that it was as it always had been, now that his master had grown up enough to want what they oh so often did - and realising that, not once, did Kili make any moves at all. No stolen touches, no questions he couldn't answer as he wished to ("give them all they desire", that blasted fucking sorcerer had bid him. It didn't have to be wishes, though some at least squandered them on it. He had just tried to do what's best and yet the sorcerer had left nothing out that might be used to hurt him, every single part of his curse designed to destroy him.)  
And yet. Nothing but respect and care and _love_ ; given without any thought as to what it might gain him.  
How did he ever come to be so blessed to meet someone like Kili?  
If he could have, if Kili wanted it, he would have given him the world. 

Instead, Fili spent years holding Kili through hell, through seeing his kingdom slowly fall further and further to ruin and being helpless, even with an all powerful genie by his side, to actually make it better.  
When the noose had tightened and almost caught him, Kili finally made his wishes. Two of them, the most beautifully worded wishes that Fili had ever been given, and instead of fighting them like he had done so often, he did all he could to make them perfect, to give him a life worth living, a life worthy of such a bright and caring being.  
But Fili was unable to convince Kili to forget his third, as much as he tried. 

And oh, he tried. 

Kili had asked him about setting him free even before he made his wishes and Fili had been thrown, shaken, because there was nothing he ever wanted as much as that and yet the thought of Kili blind, destroyed by his own act of kindness suddenly filled him with terror. Fili had stuttered out something, too shaken to remember the words even seconds after he muttered them - but his unusually strong reaction only seemed to fuel Kili's determination.  
They were all but fighting over it for years, and Fili wasn't sure what he was fighting for some days, because of course, _of course he wanted his freedom_ , like nothing else in the world and why didn't he just accept it if it was offered to him on a silver platter? He gave his warnings, it shouldn't have been his problem if the Prince didn't _listen_. 

But then he looked into Kili's eyes, the softness, the care, the warmth - and he was disgusted at his own thoughts, how all the years of cruel servitude had almost turned him into the very thing he had tried to fight, even bound as he was.  
He understood Kili's fears of what playing those political games might turn him into all too well after that. 

In the end, Fili's fighting was all for naught. Even his last desperate attempt to warn him, the words burning on his tongue and the curse strangling him for saying even that, didn't matter.  
Kili refused to accept Fili's eternal unhappiness, regardless of the cost to himself.  
It would haunt Fili forever, the unshed tears in those expressive brown eyes, not wanting to lose him but refusing to let him live as a slave for even a second longer.  
The moment the eyes stopped sparkling, the bright brown fading into lifeless grey, muted, lost.  
There had been no joy in his chains finally falling away, even as he hugged Kili to his chest, his first act of freedom a desperate plea for forgiveness from the one being who he had never wanted to hurt.  
It would haunt Fili for as long as he lived. 

But as much as it still hurt to think about that day, Kili reaction afterwards brought that same confusion into his heart as he always did.  
Kili had laughed. It had been a hysterical laugh perhaps, but a laugh all the same, when he clung to Fili with all his might, asking again and again, just to be sure, that Fili would stay, that he wanted to stay, that they wouldn't be separated. And Fili did what he had wanted to do for so long, but hadn't let himself because it was the one thing that would destroy him, if Fili knew that love and lost it.  
He kissed Kili, right there on the ground, clinging to each other. "I'm here, I love you, I want to stay, always" interspersed with "I'm sorry, this is all my fault, I swear I didn't want this, I'm so sorry, I never wanted to hurt you, please, I'm _so sorry_." 

It was only hours later, after his story finally spilled out, after years of being locked inside his throat, unable to be spoken, and after Kili insisted, again and again and again, that it wasn't Fili's fault (holding him through the tears as if Fili was the one who deserved the support and love, as if he hadn't just lost his eyes and Fili should have been stronger, should have held him, supported him, done more than be the broken mess he was, nothing but apologies to offer) that Fili truly realised just what Kili had asked for.  
His Kili was clever, always had been. Every single wish had been artfully crafted, worded to perfection. His third, of course, was no exception. 

Kili hadn't just wished him free. He had wished for Fili to find his happiness wherever and however he wanted to find it.  
He had wished him free in a way that would ensure Fili would get his happiness. That the curse couldn't hurt him anymore, as much as it might try.  
It wasn't enough to prevent Kili losing his sight (maybe it could have been, if he had just found a way to make Kili understand, to warn him, so that Kili could have been prepared, even if he still would have insisted on doing it, despite knowing the cost) but it gave Fili options, options he wouldn't have had otherwise.

Fili was intimately familiar with how wishes worked. He didn't know if the curse had awareness that would try to turn the wish around on them, but even on the off-chance it had, there was little there it could work with.  
He had given others powers before, given them a leg up, a headstart on anything they wanted. This wish was centered on him, on his happiness, and Fili knew how to spin it just as he needed it.  
Fili felt guilty for what he had done to his love, and guilt wasn't happiness.  
What would absolve the guilt?  
Being able to give Kili back what he had stolen from him.

Fili knew it frustrated Kili that he still insisted he was responsible, as much as Kili tried to convince him that it hadn't been his fault, that Kili never blamed him, not even for a second. That he was happy and would rather lose his eyes than lose Fili, much less to another enternity of that hell.  
Fili saw how much Kili pushed himself, to do all that he did before, to prove losing his eyes didn't break him, in the hope that maybe then Fili could forgive himself.  
Fili appreciated the thought, loved him all the more for it, and supported Kili in everything he did - but Fili couldn't believe him. Not because Kili was wrong (a dangerous thought, just on the edge on what he could allow himself) but because as long as he believed he needed Kili to be healthy and whole with his eyes back, the magic was still required to help him. 

And help him it did. 

Fili bought book after book after book on medical practices, took courses in the city, met just the right people at just the right time, and steadily worked his way to becoming a renowned doctor, an all but miracle worker in any field, but _especially_ in anything pertaining to people's eyes.  
Fili hadn't quite managed to make the blind see just yet, but he had helped those who were close to losing their sight to almost a full recovery. 

When he hit road blocks, ancient texts found their way into his hands, when he needed outside input, medical conventions were set up in places that Kili had always wanted to explore and insisted that he still could, seeing with his fingertips, his nose, his ears and Fili describing in minute detail whatever he missed. 

Kili was supportive of his studies of course, though they were both careful not to mention Fili trying to cure his eyes. Kili was smart, he must have figured out what Fili was trying to do. They both knew they would fight over it if they spoke of it, Kili insisting he was happy, and he wanted Fili to be _happy_ when he made that wish, not deliberately keeping himself just guilty enough to keep the magic working.  
Fili would insist that he needed to do this, that he could make up for all the sins he had been forced to take part in, for all the lives he had helped take when he granted the wishes of monsters, the magic forcing his hands despite the bile in his throat. There was nothing he could do against a well worded wish, as much as he tried to fight where he could. 

Fili didn't know if saving Kili from this fate would fully absolve him of his sin, but he wouldn't stop before then. So he kept his eyes closed to Kili's amazing ability to find joy even in this, to be who he had always been and his refusal to let his lack of eyesight define him.  
Fili still supported Kili, unconditionally. He wasn't _unhappy_ when he held Kili tight each night, when they exchanged kisses out on their porch, the sun warm on their skin, when they talked for hours or when Fili read them books, enjoying how Kili kept playing with his hair, or absentmindedly tracing his skin while Fili's words painted worlds into his mind.  
He wasn't _unhappy_ when Kili learned to cook, learned to navigate, learned to not need his eyes anymore.  
He just didn't let himself be as happy as he could be. 

But he held on, and now, years later, he had finally got the confirmation that it was possible.  
The first person whose eyesight he restored was a little girl, 5 years old, born blind. She had been overwhelmed at first but Fili was sure she would enjoy this gift in time. 

The second was a man who had lost his in an accident, chemical burns all over his face. Fili couldn't remove the scars, though he referred him to a doctor who specialised in that, but the man had wept and thanked him, praising him, amazed at how his sight was just as good as it used to be.  
A miracle no one had thought possible. 

His third would be Kili, because there was power in threes. 

Kili stiffened when he brought it up that evening, lips tight and trembling, tears leaking through his closed eyes; but he listened. He listened when Fili laid out everything that would happen, what he had done to keep the risk at a minimum, what kind of recovery period was to be expected, what exactly he would do and how he had learned to do it. Fili rambled. He knew he did and didn't want to and did it anyway. This was the culmination of everything he had worked for all these years.  
In the end, Kili, his love, his saviour, his _everything_ , only asked him one thing. 

"Will you be happy, after? When I have my sight again. Truly happy?" 

And for once, despite giving his answer everyday of their life together and meaning it, Fili hesitated. Because this was more, this was Kili asking if he could let go of the past for him, if he could enjoy their 'happy ever after' that Kili had built through his cleverness and kindness. Fili didn't want to lie, the people he had harmed in his years of captivity still haunted him, always would, but... He wanted to be happy, wanted to enjoy his freedom, this one lifetime he had been granted. Kili had moved on, and once Fili had done this last thing, fulfilled this last wish, he would follow. It was time, if only to bring Kili the happiness he deserved.  
"Yes" he breathed. And Kili looked at him with unseeing eyes and smiled. 

-

And Fili was happy. He felt the last of the magic finally slip out of him - leaving him fully mortal, fully free - when Kili's beautiful brown eyes looked back at him, and his love gently pulled him in for a kiss, one of many to follow. The future stretched before them, full of love and endless possibilities. And they would get to see it - together. 

**Author's Note:**

> Long Personal Note ahead:
> 
> I'm honestly a bit uncomfortable with this work, due to how often the curing of a characters disability is used to disrespect people with disabilities. I would like to think I have managed to make it clear that the loss - or the regaining - of his eyesight doesn't make Kili lesser, or less than a full character of his own. For the record: I do believe that it's very much possible to live a happy life even with disabilities.  
> I originally deleted this story due to that fear, but have reuploaded as some of my readers seem to have enjoyed it.  
> Please note that I don't usually delete things after I have uploaded them, so I hope this will remain a one time thing (maybe I'm just going to add a note like this to it if I feel uncomfortable again).
> 
> I post - and admittedly in big part: write - because I want to make my readers happy. So please know that I listen to requests and will do what I can to fulfill them.
> 
> That said, I do have a question for my readers:  
> Are you interested even in stories that I think might not be quite as good as what I usually post? I am often wary about posting stories, especially sequels, if I can't get them perfect, or close to. Which is why, for example, the sequel to my Ice Queen Story hasn't been posted even though its written. Apologies if its weird to ask questions like this, but considering how obsessive I can get about the quality of my works I thought asking those who will read them might be a good idea.


End file.
